Summoned by the Sea
by Cal.J.Fielding
Summary: Wilby Wonderful: a look back at Ducks life from just before the start of the film.It's a bit rambling and loses focus in the middle but it wasn't getting better despite the rewrites.


**Summoned by the Sea**

"_An only child; deliciously apart,_

Misunderstood and not like other boys" 

Walter MacDonald had never quite fit.

To start with he was a MacDonald, and everyone knew what that meant. One of the old families on the island, but not old in the way of prestige and standing, like the Frenchs or the Johnsons, though he was related to both in some way, but old in a sense that would have become synonymous with eccentric, if they had had some money behind them, but that had instead left them labelled as odd.

But it was more than just his heritage, more than the small lonely house hidden in a gully at the far end of town. It was something in and of himself, setting him apart from others, even from his family, and he never was sure if it was the fact that he didn't fit that made him so quiet, gave him the tendency to stare off into the distance, or if it was that tendency that was the reason he never quite fit.

---

He had left Wilby when he was seventeen and it was seventeen years more before he stepped foot on the island again. He had stood alone at his mother's grave, the funeral a quiet murmur of the vicar's words that he watched from behind damp eyes, and thought about his life, about how unlikely it was that he would get his High School Diploma, and he had decided he was leaving.

School had always been hard for him, another example of how normal he wasn't. It hadn't helped that he'd started late, a couple of years and a few weeks into term, but his mum hadn't realised he needed to be there, and apparently the authorities weren't quite sure exactly how old he was, something to do with being a home birth and a lack of paperwork. So when he finally did attend it was with a lot of attention, whispers behind his back and stares in the playground, until a voice had rung out "it's just the MacDonald kid, leave him be," and things had settled down a little.

School had been hard, but not bad, not considering what was to come. He had been nicknamed Duck once for reasons no one seemed to know, but it had stuck, and it hadn't been malicious and so he hadn't really minded, he got so used to it in fact, that it was how he thought of himself some days. It was more interesting than Walter, at any rate.

He didn't read well, hadn't been able to read at all when he started school. But he had picked it up pretty quickly, a fast learner his teachers had said, but he only seemed to be able to learn that sort of thing up to a point.

Buddy French used to help him with his work sometimes, even though Duck was a grade below him.

"That's what family does" was Buddy's reason, but Duck knew how the Frenchs always tried to downplay their connection to the MacDonalds, knew that it had less to do with family and more to do with Buddy being one of those civic minded types, a good guy who liked to help people. In contrast to Duck, who was well aware that the only time he ever managed to help was when he got into fights in unwanted defence of some of the younger kids, which, according to the teachers, "didn't help anyone." anyway.

Buddy would come over at lunch and they'd sit, his pencil pointing out where Duck's words were wrong, his voice soft as he explained the questions, flashing that quick bright smile that always made Duck feel warm when he got an answer right all on his own.

Dyslexic was a word he heard a lot in later years, and 'attention deficit' was bandied around, but back then he was mostly just told to focus more and stop daydreaming. And if sometimes Duck was told he was stupid, well maybe he was, but he knew how to fix machines and build furniture and where to find the best clams on the island and he always knew if it was going to rain that day, which was more than a lot of people in Wilby seemed to know, and a hell of a lot more useful than knowing what an adjective was.

---

"Leaving Wilby, going to see what's out there." He had said to Buddy and Sandra as they walked slowly out of the cemetery, the ground damp from the fog that the spring sun hadn't burned off yet. They had been there for the service, their quiet presence a few paces behind him the only thing that had held back the tears as the coffin was lowered. He spoke for the first time that day as they left, Sandra clutching to Buddy's arm, evidently for support as they traversed the uneven terrain, but, to Duck, her unrequited crush was telegraphed in her every move.

His voice had been hoarse but sure, echoing slightly off the nearby mausoleum, stopping them in their tracks.

"Mum's gone, so she doesn't need me no more."

His fingers pulled at a loose thread on the tie he'd had to dig out of the back of his dad's closet, as he glanced up through his eyelashes at Buddy, before twisting his gaze away to the side, and staring out at the horizon as he continued, "Nothing I can do for her, and Dad, he'll manage just fine, he's got his own way of doing things."

"What about school?" Buddy had said, his soft tone easilly overlaid by Sandra's voice as she shok her head and interjected. "Your dad, Duck, your dad…"

"Loves me. I know. He loves you too, you should know that, but none of that's in question, that's not what I'm saying. He just, he doesn't need me."

He had looked at them then, seen them thinking about his dad, how he wasn't there for his wife's funeral, and how it was likely he wouldn't be back before Duck had left. And Duck had known then that they didn't really understand, probably couldn't ever understand, had felt his frustration building, strangling the words in his throat as he tried to find some way to convey his thoughts.

"What about school, Duck?" Buddy's voice had still been quiet, but there had been a harder tone underlying it. His hand had come up to rest lightly on Duck's elbow, "You've been doing better this year, you should…"

"I've been suspended twice this year, and I've got a failing grade in at least three subjects," he had barked out, the words tumbling over themselves, scratchy and raw, " You're not listening to me, you're…I…Sorry."

The last word had been grated out as he spun away, knocking Buddy's hand from his arm, chest heaving, hands clenched, the skin stark white where it pulled taut across the knuckles.

"It's…there's no place for me here. I can't keep, I can't…" He had trailed off at the feel of Sandra's hand sliding over his fist. Duck had taken a deep breath and turned his hand, folding their fingers together, before he had squeezed her hand gently and let go.

"I need to see if I fit better somewhere else."

His words had hung heavy in the silence. With no response forthcoming Duck had left, head bowed. Walked away without another word, just took one last look in their eyes and saw the concern, the disappointment that resided there. That they thought he wasn't thinking clearly had been plain to see, and he knew he had failed to convince them that it was the right course of action, felt that failure burning behind his breastbone, flaring into pain, breathtakingly sharp, with each step he took away from his friends.

But three days later, in spite of their concerns, it had been the two of them, windswept and cold, that had wished him luck as he called out goodbye; the two of them, huddled together, who had stood there and waved until his ferry disappeared around the corner.

His last view of Wilby Island had been the Watch, his place of solitude and cigarettes and charcoal between his fingers, the stretch of coast, rocky and barren, being slowly enveloped in fog.

---

Seventeen years he had stayed on the mainland, half his life gone by with nothing to show for it but a few scars, a tattoo, and a battered old truck, and he had slipped back into Wilby like he had never been gone. It had taken him a while to work his way back east, nearly a year and a half, so by the time that he had driven his truck down the ferry's ramp he was more than ready to stop moving.

He didn't see much of anybody for the first couple of years after he returned, kept himself to himself, fixing up the house, which had been in a bad state having been abandoned for so long, and taking long walks along the Watch.

It had been strange working on the house, just his tools and the radio for company, the house empty and desolate like a scene from a horror movie, all manner of things left out, laying wherever they had been used last. Plates stacked on the drainer, long since dry, laundry in a basket waiting to be ironed, which had been decimated by moths in the time that had passed. The couch he had slept on as a boy was covered in dust and the sections of a newspaper, folded and laid out the way his father always read it, giving a date for the last time the house had been occupied.

---

He had been twenty-eight and working as a mechanic in Campbellton when he had received the letter, the numerous postmarks bearing testament to the number of places and companies that it had bounced around before it had found him. But found him it had, all the way from Wilby Island.

It was Buddy who had written it, Buddy who had left the island for college and football a year after Duck himself had left, and then come back for family and police work with a political sciences degree and a busted knee. He seemed happy enough all told, working with his dad on the force and going over to the mainland with everyone else to watch the High School team games.

But that wasn't why Buddy had written.

Arthur MacDonald was gone, vanished into the night, and with three months gone by, the longest he had ever been missing, Buddy had felt that he should write and inform Duck.

His dad had gone, missing presumed dead, but Duck hadn't gone back to Wilby, there was no funeral, no need to go back to the island at all, the weeks that had passed since the letter had been written meant the house had already been sealed up, nothing left to be done.

For as long as Duck could remember his father had been periodically disappearing into the night and reappearing later, his reasons and actions for the time gone unexplained, and the talk of the town.

He hadn't realised that anyone even knew it happened when he was little, and never thought anyone would care anyway. But once he had started school, it had become more obvious that this wasn't something that everyone's Dad did, that fathers were only absent if they worked on the mainland or divorced their wives, and that the denizens of Wilby had sometimes wondered what these mysterious absences were doing to "poor little Walter".

---

"She actually called him that, 'poor little Walter', it was weird, I mean this was my mum, she never calls him anything but 'that MacDonald boy'."

The words had stopped Duck in his tracks. He'd been thirteen and small for his age, small enough to still move through the woods without causing much of a disturbance, and so had come upon the teenagers without them noticing. The mention of his name had captured his attention, and Duck had moved forwards a few more steps, dropping down to a crouch.

"That's nothing new Janine," Irene Johnson replied, her strident tones securing Ducks attention, "everyone's been saying things like that for years. Every few months my mum and her friends go on about "what sort of life" Duck's living, and how "it's a wonder how well behaved he is, the way he's allowed to run riot all over the place", it's like…"

Duck's attention drifted then, he'd been too focused on the words he'd just heard to hear the words that followed, Irene's voice fading into the back of his mind. His hand dropped to the ground, fingers twining through the damp grass, a small part of him longing for a cigarette he knew he didn't have, as the rest of him was turned inward, thinking back, remembering all the cut off conversations his presence had caused, conversations he'd always assumed had been stopped because he was a kid, not because of which kid he was. Because they couldn't really have been talking about him, people didn't talk about him, nobody noticed him enough to talk about him like that.

The grass stem had broken in his hand, small droplets of sap spattering across his fingers, leaving his skin sticky and bringing him back to awareness; he had still been able to hear Irene and Janine: though they had started to move along the path, the conversation topic had changed to music, and Duck, no longer interested and still part lost in his own thoughts, had stood. His hand reaching out for support and finding warm skin instead of the branch he had been expecting.

"Shit!" Duck had stammered out, as he instinctively took two steps backward, arm coming up to shield his face, two steps back before the embarrassment had set in, before the raised arm converted into a hand rubbing at the short hair on the back of his neck. "Hey, Buddy."

"Hey, Duck, you okay?"

"I'm good." Too quick, too defensive. His reply had rung false on every level, even though he had believed it to be mostly true. "Just, didn't know people talked about me is all."

"They don't, much. Irene's just mouthing off, you know how she is."

"She's a bitch…but, um…yeah"

"She's not so bad really," A pause, lips compressed and then relaxed, and then he had continued tentatively, "I mean the other day my dad mentioned that you were picked up by the police in the middle of the night, and when that sort of thing happens people are going to talk, you've got to expect that."

Buddy's voice had held all manner of questions, and Duck found himself anxious to explain, his own voice holding shades of reproach over the unspoken accusation.

"I wasn't in trouble, Buddy, they just gave me a lift home. It's not like I've started a one man crime wave or something."

"It was three in the morning, what the hell where you doing?"

"Nothing, just taking photos, that's all."

"At three in the morning? Look, Dad said it didn't look like anyone was home when you got dropped off. Is everything okay?"

"Home's fine, Buddy. " He had sighed, belligerence creeping into his tone. "Mum was just asleep. And she knows I go out at night sometimes, she doesn't have a problem with it."

Buddy had sighed too, a long exhalation of sound as he turned and walked a few paces away.

"And you? Are you okay, Duck?"

"Yes."

Duck's reply had been low, grated out between his teeth, where it had hung heavy in the air. A moment had passed, then two, and then it dissipated and he had been left standing there, watching as Buddy departed, and wondering why, out of all the people he knew, his family and his teachers and the busy-bodies of the island, why Buddy was the only who ever asked him if he was all right, and yet never seemed to believe the answer.

---

Buddy always had tried to look after him, he had remembered as he traced the letter's signature with one finger, the side of his mouth tweaking up into a half smile as he had thought about how Buddy was still trying to do so over eight years after they had last seen each other, his letters coming a few times a year, even though there had hardly ever been any response from Duck.

He had decided then that that letter deserved a reply, maybe a phone call, that Buddy deserved the effort it would take to make that call, deserved it for that letter alone, for all the unanswered letters before it, and for all the times he had asked after him as a kid.

Thinking of the conversation to come he had realised how disappointed and worried Buddy would be if he could see him sat there, see the bruises around his wrist, the shadows under his eyes, the limp he had from the twisted burn scar that curled up his leg, the painful proof that trying to operate an arc welder after a liquid lunch had not been a good idea.

And he had felt, not for the first time, a deep-seated shame well up inside of him, and a confusion as to how he had come to this, just shy of thirty and already a recovering alcoholic, bruised and battered and so very alone, with no idea how to change that, how to really connect with anyone, not even a friend he had known all his life.

He must have sat in the diner for hours, nursing his coffee, black and strong, the letter clutched tight between his fingers, or smoothed out on the Formica tabletop as he painstakingly read each word with care. It had been at some point during the fourth reading that Duck had decided to head further west, to try and get some work on the pipeline, his last lingering ties to home, to the island, broken even more with his fathers departure, the lingering taste of the sea on his lips from the tears he never knew had fallen chasing him across the plains.

He'd spent the following six years working his way out west and then back again, six years during which he had realised Wilby was the place he needed to be, six years without a word from his father.

---

His return to the island had been quiet, people had known he was back, news like that travelled fast in Wilby, but he hadn't had much contact with anyone at first, there had been a few inquires as to his health, and a question or two asking if he had ever discovered what had become of his dad, but mostly he was left alone, it seemed to have been common knowledge that he liked his space, and that he needed some time to get to know the island again.

And it was Wilby itself, the houses and the dock, the metal frame bridge, the islanders and the sea, that had pulled him back into himself, took all the parts of him, the good and the bad parts, the parts that are Duck and the parts that are Walter, and wrapped them around him like skin and muscle pulled tight over bones.

Looking back Duck can see that the last few years have been good, he feels like a complete person for the first time in his life, finally grown up enough to see the world for what it is, see both the big picture and the smaller picture inside it, he knows himself now and can finally let people know him.

It seems sometimes that he is almost back where he started, getting odd jobs and nods on the street, except he's happier with himself, secure in his self-containment, his imposed isolation, in a way he never has been before, not growing up on the island, not in the long list of places he resided on the mainland, not even laying quietly at night in Edson, Ben's hand warm on his hip, the night breeze drifting across the room raising goosebumps on his exposed skin.

---

Ben Robertson had been on his crew in Edson, working the Trans-Canada pipeline, a large man in his forties who took Duck under his wing on the first day and called him "kid" and "my boy" without sounding patronising.

Duck hadn't fit in on the pipeline, he was too skinny, too introspective, and too sober, too everything and not enough at the same time, but that had mattered less to him by then than it had before. He hadn't fit at the docks, and he hadn't fit in the club scene, the prairies where too open and the mountains made him feel almost closed in, but he had kept going cause he had known there had to be more to life than he had discovered yet.

Ben had been there in little ways that first week in Edson, a clap of his hand on his shoulder in farewell, an invitation to get a drink at the bar after a hard day, the quiet acceptance and lack of judgement when all Duck ever ordered was soda.

It had built from that into late nights spent talking, an arm round his shoulders as they walk from the site to their lodgings, a hand smoothing back Duck's hair the day his temperature hit 104, the gentle pressure of lips to his own, and the warmth from arms wrapped tight around him, a leg tangled with his, as he faded into sleep. It hadn't been much, hadn't been love not really, but it had been affection, an actual connection, it had been real.

More real than shame filled fumbling in dark alleys, more truthful than the furtive meetings in deserted parks, the infrequent assignations throughout the decade prior that Duck had never really enjoyed, always found lacking in some way, but knows he had to have had, because he couldn't always be alone no matter how much he liked his solitude, sometimes he had needed to feel like someone knew him, the whole him, sometimes he had just needed to feel. The touch of a hand to his face, a whisper of lips across his neck, a body pressed close as he found his release, a hand in his hair, evidence of another's passion flooding his tongue. And if it hadn't been what he needed it was what he had wanted, and if it hadn't always been what he wanted it was what he had needed back then.

But Ben had been more than those brief encounters, Ben had washed that need away and replaced it with a new one, so when the job finished and the crew broke apart and Ben headed home to his family, Duck had been left with a need to connect, for permanence, for a life not his itinerant style. He had needed to see grey skies merging with a fog-enshrouded shore; he had heard the sea calling him home. It had been strange to realise that home still meant Wilby, even after all those years.

---

It often seems that many of the people in Wilby don't really know him, not all of him, but Duck's decided that they don't need to, he's not hiding, just living quietly the way he likes, he knows that they will know him as they will, and he's content in himself and the world he's built around him. The mainlanders, and there are more of them on Wilby now than there used to be, appear to hardly understand his life at all, and they are less comfortable with him as a result. They see him as reserved, as out of step, but they also see him at his work, his role as a handyman leaving him visible in the community if not personally well known, and so they label him as just another islander, though maybe as an islander who is a little bit too quiet, a little too odd.

He knows he doesn't speak much, finds more understanding in silence than words ever gave him, he never had understood the need to talk when you don't have anything to say, it was another thing that set him apart in the past, something that his shyness or his temper had never let him overcome, but that silence is a part of him now and on Wilby silence just means you can hear the sea.

He probably speaks to Buddy the most, they often bump into each other at various places around the island, Duck out on one of his jobs, Buddy on patrol, and he keeps abreast of the news that way. He had known before most people that Sandra was on her way home, had passed that news on to Buddy and seen his reaction and Duck worries what her presence on the island will mean for Buddy and Carol.

---

The last time he had actually seen Sandra before she had arrived in Wilby had been a few years back. He'd been working construction in some small Manitoba town, dirty and sweaty, able to feel the grit of building sand all over his skin and stinging behind his eyelids, but that hadn't stopped Sandra. Dressed up all nice in a frilly little top and her hair curled she had called his name and threw herself into his arms, babbling something about Buddy and Deena, and a phone call, a letter and being just down the road in Winnipeg, and not being able to pass the chance up, since she actually knew where he was for once. When she pulled herself away from him she had cuffed him around the head.

"Duck, you got me all dirty." She whined, before laughing and grabbing his hand "C'mon, there's a café down there, and I've got so much to tell you."

He had allowed her to tow him down the road for a few paces, before he had stopped, their joined hands halting her progress as well. His hand had raised towards her, almost completing its move to tuck a lock of hair away from her face, when, on noticing the state of his fingers, creosote stained and dusty, he had withdrawn the contact, offering a warm smile instead.

"It's really good to see you, Sandy."

The café Sandra mentioned had been empty when they entered, save for the waitress behind the counter, and Duck had hurried off to the restroom to wash up, leaving Sandra to find a table and place their orders. He had arrived back, neater if not truly clean, sliding into his seat just as the waitress appeared, coffee steaming enticingly in the cups she placed in front of them.

"Thank you, ma'am." He had murmured as he added sugar, the paper sachets crinkling between his fingers.

"Can I get you folks anything else?" Asked the waitress, glancing at Duck after having received a headshake from Sandra.

"No ma'am, that's all, thank you."

Sandra had laughed softly, shaking her head, her earrings glittering in the harsh fluorescent lighting.

"Oh Duck, you haven't changed a bit, still so polite, well until someone pisses you off."

"I've changed." The words were harsher than he has intended them, and he dropped his gaze from Sandra's surprised glance. "Or maybe, I think maybe I changed, and then mostly changed back again."

He had laughed then, the sound leaving a surprisingly bitter taste in his mouth. "I'm not making any sense, sorry, you had news?"

"Duck?" She had sounded worried, something that Duck had wanted to avoid, the few times they had met up over the years he hadn't always been at his best, but she had never seen him at his worst either, never seen him so down and alone, so lost and drunk, that getting hurt was the only thing that had seemed right.

"I'm good, I'm good Sandra, I just, things weren't so great for a while there, but they're getting better." He had wondered if he could leave it at that, change the subject and get away with it, but he'd decided weeks ago to quit hiding from himself, so he had taken a deep breath and plunged on. "You remember how I wouldn't drink back in Wilby?"

"Yeah, you didn't see the point, used to yell at me and Deena whenever we passed out on you." Her tone was light enough, but Duck had been able to see understanding dawning in her eyes.

"That was one of those things that changed, and then changed back. It took a while, but I figured out that while I might think I like who I am when I'm drinking, nobody else does."

"So you're a drunk, and I'm a whore…bet the folks back on Wilby would feel vindicated if they knew."

"A recovering drunk." Duck had countered, a smile forming. "And you're not a whore."

"No…but I am a single mother, that's almost as bad, right?"

"Do you love it?"

"Of course I love her! She's my Emily, my baby girl…"

"Then she's lucky." Duck's hand had reached out to grab Sandra's angrily gesturing arm, "You got pictures of her?"

They had sat there long into the evening, drinking coffee and talking about everything and nothing. Sandra passing on updates on the lives of the folks back in Wilby; though she had long since left the island she had kept in contact with the friends who remained, unlike Duck who had managed to send a few postcards the first year he was away and made a single phone call in response to the letter from Buddy. It had been starting to get dark when conversation filtered around to their youth, to High School.

---

School had always seemed pretty pointless to Duck, but he had gone anyway, cause that's what his mum said she wanted, and he had always tried to do right by her even if she didn't seem to notice. He had managed to attend most of his classes to start with, but it got harder each year and by the time he had dropped out of school, he must have spent half his time playing hooky with Sandra, sat out behind the bike sheds, cigarette clamped between his teeth, talking and laughing, or joined by Peter and Irene, Deena and James, sometimes with Sandra dragging a boy off to a hidden spot, the moans and giggles giving their activities away.

And never once had Duck felt unwelcome there, abnormal, even though he was the quietest. If he zoned out, gaze staring blankly at the tree line, then when he had come back to himself it was always to James' hand on his shoulder, gently shaking him, or to Sandra, arms wrapped around his neck, her body plastered to his back, swaying him from side to side as she softly called his name.

He could remember one time, they had been sat on the rocks at the Watch, just Sandra and himself, the autumn breeze blowing her hair into her eyes, the rapidly darkening twilight leaching the colour from the world, clouds hanging low in the sky, heavy with the threat of rain.

They had been there since the start of last period, passing cigarettes back and forth, as Sandra rambled on about another of her homework assignments for a while before she segued back to her main topic, the awesomeness of one Buddy French. Duck had smiled softly as she babbled on, willing to sit an listen, even though she had become repetitive a good ten minutes ago, because Buddy was a pretty awesome guy, and though he would never admit it, Duck had been more than halfway in love with Buddy himself.

So had Sandra been, which was most of the problem.

Sandra, with her drinking and short skirts, her language and her one-night stands and her reputation, had not been the type of girl Buddy paid attention to that way, though from similar conversations Duck knew Buddy had noticed her, thought about Sandra some of the ways she wanted him to think about her.

Even then, listening to Sandra list all the things the two of them had in common as the mist rolled in off the sea, Duck had known that Sandra wasn't suited for Buddy, and that he wasn't what she needed either, he knew they wouldn't work, couldn't work, though he had thought that if anything ever did happen, they'd likely have fun while it lasted.

---

Carol though is a different matter. Duck doesn't know Carol well, will never know her like he knows Sandra, though he reckons he'll have more insight after he finishes working on this Wilby project for her. But he knows her through second-hand information and the little he has personally observed, knows how well she fits into island life, even if she doesn't know it yet, and more importantly knows how well she fits with Buddy, complementing him in ways Sandra never could.

Buddy met Carol at university, and again while on secondment to a mainland police force, and on his return to Wilby she came with him, as in love with the island and the sea as Buddy was, but slowly burying that love beneath ambition and reputation and career, a new layer added with each business trip to the mainland.

Duck doesn't understand the concept of career. During his years away he had worked, and worked hard, for money, for food, for a place to sleep, but he had never worked for the progression of a career, and he had never found a job he liked more than the handyman position he held on Wilby, plumbing and construction, carpentry and painting, a job that kept him busy, let him use the skills he had in ways he enjoyed, a job without opportunity for promotion, but that filled his needs.

So he spends his days working, building and fixing, much as he had done as a teenager when he mowed peoples lawns so they didn't have to, painted old Mr Patterson's fence the summer he turned 16, the one the Crossfield brothers had said they'd do all that year, working for small change. The only difference now is that he gets given the more complicated work as well as getting paid decent money, people still shake their heads at his appearance, at the line of grease smeared across his temple, the sawdust clinging to the knee of his pants, at the paint that spatters his boots.

So he works, he takes trips to the mainland to buy supplies, and he walks the island, visiting the places he loves, the clam beds and the river, the cliff behind his house and in front, sand and surf stretching along the coast, the Watch.

Duck loves the Watch, has spent many hours there, leaning against its rocks staring out at the sea, or sitting upon the sand, knife blade flashing in the dawning sun as his hands drew forth figures and shapes from the driftwood he had gathered.

He likes to be able to relax, to know that he can take the time to stop and think. The pace on Wilby is slower than anything he experienced on the mainland, there he had never seemed to be able to catch his breath.

---

He had worked the docks when he first left the island, took jobs on the boats and in factories, tried his hand at bartending once, but he couldn't keep the orders straight in his head, he had moved back and forth along the coast wherever the work was, and the years had passed by.

It had got a little easier when he had finally saved enough to get a truck, that had meant he could work odd jobs as he travelled inland, but then it had gotten harder again. He had never settled anywhere long, never found the place he fit, the acquaintances he made were temporary much like the jobs on which he made them, had never found anywhere he loved as much as the Watch, and the years had passed by.

And if he had drunk a little too much sometimes, well that had just been the way of things.

And if sometimes the little had been more like a lot, and all the parts of him hadn't seem to fit in his skin, and the silence around him just hadn't been right, well it had only meant that he'd been a bit quieter for a while, slept a bit more, ate a bit less, not really a problem, and if that hadn't been the end of it, if it had sometimes cycled round to anger, well he had mostly taken those moments out on plaster and bricks and dumpsters, and if he had seen something that sparked him off, heard a comment he just couldn't let pass, well he had never gotten hurt too bad really, never hurt anyone too bad, just bruises and scrapes and the odd broken face. And it had hardly ever gone further than a few punches, a quick slam against a wall, a counter, a bar, and a night with the police as he cooled down and sobered up.

---

Some nights on Wilby the Watch wasn't just his, others would come down to the shore, people he knows and those he didn't, islanders mostly, but some mainlanders too, all drawn to the Watch, to its privacy, hidden as it was from the eyes of the town, to its peace.

Duck had stumbled on the secret of the Watch by accident soon after he returned to the island; overlooked, as he often was when at work, he had overheard a hurried conversation confirming the nights activities, and, intrigued by the prospect of like-minded individuals on Wilby, had checked the situation out that evening. He had been glad to find that, like so many facets of island life, it was often more of a community than it's counterpart on the mainland, less a hook-up spot and more a gathering that might include a rendezvous amongst the trees. There had been many nights Duck would be there, and do nothing more than sit, long legs stretched out, boots taping gently against those of the person next to him, relaxing in the dark and the company of men.

And Dan, Dan had been a surprise; he eased into Duck's life without fanfare. Just another job, called down to the new video store to fit the counter, Mrs Jarvis a forceful presence, full of orders and design schemes but with no real idea of what she wanted for the store.

Duck didn't see her after the first visit, her work kept her busy, she left the island more than Carol French and Michael Dobson combined, and so it was Dan who was there from then on, his soft voice and reserved manners in direct contrast to the passion he showed for the films he stocked, his joy in the westerns he played continuously, the spark in his eyes the few times Duck ventured to speak, and managed to make him laugh.

But Duck had sworn to himself that he wouldn't compromise his morals again, not for alcohol, not for loneliness, not even for love, so he abstained from accepting overtures when Dan turned up at the Watch, because although he wanted the man, wanted to feel his hand on his face, the tasted of him on his lips, Dan was married, and while Dan might be struggling with what that meant, Duck had sworn he would not walk that road.

But even still they had often ended up sat next to each other as the time passed, not really speaking, just enjoying the night, sat there when everyone else was gone. Their homes were the closest to the Watch, though at opposite ends of the stretch of coast, so they could easily stay later, comfortable in the silence and the magic that the Watch weaved around them.

And the one time Duck succumbed, the one time they did head into the trees together, well that was the night of the raid, flashing lights, blue and red and white, bouncing of the trees and the water, everyone around them scattering, the sounds of panic and bodies crashing through the undergrowth echoing of the rocks.

Duck had lost Dan somewhere in the initial confusion, trees turned into figures, figures faded into trees, into rocks, into the night, and so he slipped away alone, his house at the far end of the Watch, dark and unobserved, and he had entered easily and unchallenged, safe from punishment inside its walls.

---

Its been a week since the raid and Duck is still safe and secure, happy enough with his life, his job, his place on the island, accepted if not understood, and yet still separated by silence, by convention, from the one person he feels true affection for. He sees the pain in Dan's eyes, the hurt of a shattered marriage and a fractured life, and yet sees also the relief at his wife's departure and the freedom it brings. Duck sees Dan's shame and his guilt, and entwined in all this he sees the fear, the fear of exposure, of condemnation, of abandonment, of his new found freedom and what it all means about himself, and every time Duck sees him in the distance, or drives passed the closed up video store, every time they pass on the street or he hears Dan's name, Duck worries more about what that fear may result in.

And Duck remembers something Buddy said to him once, how if you could see where you came from, you could remember what you wanted, and looking back over his life, over the roads he had travelled to get to where he is now, Duck can see that all he had wanted was a home and love and someone to share it with, and he knows that this, that Dan, is the one last thing he has to reach out for.


End file.
